Prompt: Tasertricks Fairtale AU.
Darcy burst into the Snow Queen's throne room, her skirts flying around her legs. The room was cold and pale, every inch covered with ice. A frozen lake stretched across the center. She gasped when she saw Loki sitting on the edge of the lake, but not the Loki she knew and loved. This Loki had skin a darker blue than the river Darcy had offered her shoes to. Lighter markings ran across his arms and face like feathers and his eye, those eyes were a darker red than all the roses in the world. She watched him with baited breath for a while. Loki did not seem to notice her, his eyes fixed on what seemed to be shards of ice before him. His long fingers adjusted the pieces as Darcy slowly approached him. As she drew closer, she noticed the concentrated furrow of his brow and the excited tremble of his body. Darcy quietly knelt beside her love, her eyes searching over him for the Loki she knew still lived inside this blue creature.
"Loki?"
The man didn't respond, only fiddling with the ice shards as if Darcy didn't exist to him. Darcy felt tears start to gather in her eyes, but she shoved them away. Now was not the time to lose control. "Loki," she tried again, this time reaching a trembling hand out to touch him. His skin was so cold, she wondered how he could possibly survive. Her fingers stuck lightly to his arm from the cold. She pulled her hand back, fingers throbbing, then carefully set her hand under his chin, pulling his jaw to look at her. His red, red eyes stared at her blindly, then recognition bled into them slowly.
"Darcy?" His voice had the slur of those nearly frozen. "What are you doing here?"
Darcy almost cried from sheer relief. "What do you think I'm doing? Rescuing you, big dummy."
The look in Loki's eyes was an amused sort of befuddled. "Rescue? I don't need rescuing, silly Darcy."
There was a muted crackling throughout the room. A stalactite fell from the ceiling and crashed through the icy lake with a shudder. Darcy jumped at the sound while Loki went back to the shards. She looked around anxiously; the Snow Queen would be back any moment now.
"Loki," she pleaded, "please, we need to leave."
"Oh no, I can't leave yet." Loki gave her a confident smile that squeezed at her heart, it was so achingly Loki. "I haven't finished yet."
"Finished?" Loki gestured at the shards and Darcy could see that they spelt out the beginnings of a word. E-T-E-R-N…
"Eternity?"
"My lady bid me to spell it for her with the shards."
"Why? What purpose does that serve?"
Loki ignored her questiong, fiddling with shards to make an 'I'.
"My queen promised me the world if I can do it. It's so simple and yet," he made a sound akin to a growl in his throat, "there aren't enough pieces." Sure enough, Darcy could see that no matter how he arranged the shards, he was always just one shard away from the final letter.
"What happens if you can't do it," Darcy asked, her breath coming out in white plumes.
Loki gave her a baffled expression. "Nothing," he said. "I stay until I am finished. That is all."
Darcy knew then that the Snow Queen would never let him go and that she was as good as dead if she didn't get Loki away from here. Her fingers were beginning to go numb and she couldn't quite feel her toes.
"Come on, Loki, we need to go." She tugged on his arm desperately.
"I'm not going. Not until I'm done." Loki looked at her again, beaming a manic sort of grin. "The world will be mine, little Darcy. All mine."
Shivers started ratcheting through her spine and her teeth started to chatter.
"Please, Loki," she whispered through the chatters.
"Don't worry, Darcy, it will be alright." His attention is reclaimed by the ice.
Darcy felt heat build behind her eyes and this time, she couldn't stop the tears. It felt like fire running down her face and across her stiff lips. She took a shuddering breath and placed her hands on his face again and pulled him to her. His mouth should have felt cold against hers, she dimly thought as she moved her lips against his gently. Her lips stuck where the tears had wet them and a hard shiver rattled her against him. "I love you," she whispered desperately. "I love you." Her tears ran down her cheeks, across their lips, dripping down his chin before finally landing helter-skelter across his chest. Loki gasped as heat shot through his body for the first time in what felt like millennia. Another tear hit next to the first and Loki clutched Darcy to him and kissed her back in a frenzy. Tears of his own, icy cold at first fluttered down to their lips. The ice in his heart and eyes melted and the tears became warm as honey. Loki didn't notice the glowing of the letters beside them as they slowly readjusted themselves into the favored word. For while all the world might seem a prize, only an eternity with the one you loved was worth living.